Happy Birthday to Me
by konasmitchell
Summary: Kendall, James, and Logan managed to forget Carlos' birthday this year...
1. Part 1

Carlos woke up to the sun shining through his bedroom window. He had the feeling like it would be a good day today - Gustavo had given him and the rest of the boys the day off, but better yet - today was his 17th birthday. Once he remembered this special day, he rushed to get out of his pajamas and into his regular clothes, and headed towards the kitchen for breakfast.

"What's up, helmethead?" Kendall asked as he watched Carlos enter the kitchen. "Oh you know, nothing much, the usual…" Carlos replied, grabbing a box of cereal and a bowl, hoping his friend would say the usual happy birthday wishes, but it didn't happen. "Oh, that's cool." Kendall said as he grabbed his cereal bowl and headed towards the couch. "He's probably just waiting until later to tell me happy birthday…" Carlos thought to himself, as he started to pour his cereal into his bowl.

Out of nowhere, there was quite a stir coming from the bathroom. "Sounds like James must be up," Kendall said as he turned on the television. "Let's just hope he remembers to wish me a happy birthday…" Carlos muttered under his breath, making sure Kendall didn't hear, as he grabbed the milk out of the fridge. "I thought today was going to be a special day, but I don't know if it's going to be as special as I thought… One of my best friends hasn't even said happy birthday yet. I just have to keep it positive." The noise coming from the bathroom toned down a bit, and eventually stopped. James strutted down the hallway with his usual overconfidence, and once he reached the kitchen, leaned on the countertop and boasted "I am looking good today."

"You sure are, Mr. Macho…" Carlos responded in a sarcastic tone, rolling his eyes as he took a bite of his cereal. "Is there anything you want to to say to me?"

"Yeah, I used the last of your toothpaste as I was brushing my teeth, sorry about that." James winked as he got all of his fixings for his breakfast ready. Carlos stopped chewing, scoffed a little bit and thought, "Wow, really? James didn't say anything either? I guess I should've figured out that he would forget, since it's the usual type of thing to come from him, but really… I just really hoped he would've said something. Maybe they're planning something special for later, and they really don't want to spoil it."

Logan was the last one to file out of his room for breakfast. As he rubbed away some of the sleep from his eyes, he asked, "Where's Katie and Mrs. Knight, and why is Mrs. Knight not making breakfast like she normally is?"

"Mom took Katie on another trip to San Diego," Kendall replied, not breaking his stare at the television. "They're gonna be spending the night there. Oh, and she said no parties, because of you know. Bitters."

Normally, Carlos would have been ecstatic about Mrs Knight being gone, so he could break her no party rule with his partner in crime, James - the Hollywood Super Party Kings of Hollywood. Today was just plain different, and he was starting to feel the need to not even have a social gathering. Logan had slipped passed him without a word to grab his breakfast, and then joined Kendall on the couch to watch Spongebob. James followed close behind.

Carlos started thinking to himself. "Why am I really letting myself get so upset about this? It must not have registered with them yet. It's only 10 am, their brains normally aren't working until at least noon."

He finished his cereal and rinsed out his bowl in the sink. He stared at the rest of the boys blissfully watching Spongebob for a minute, then sighed. Walking towards his room, the idea how to bring up his birthday to the rest of his bandmates popped into Carlos' mind. "Do I try and be more subtle, like I have been? Do I just go out and ask them if they remember? Or do I just continue to wait to see if they planned a surprise party? Knowing James and his keen sense of how to plan a party, that's most likely the answer."

Carlos reached his room. He took off his helmet, set it on his desk, and picked up the hockey puck sitting next to the helmet. He walked over to his bed, sat down and fumbled with the puck in his hands as he stared at the wall, lost in thought. A knock on his door snapped him out of his thoughts. Logan opened the door slightly, saying "Hey man, we're doing to Palm Woods Park. You wanna come along?"

"No thanks," Carlos replied, glancing over at logan for a few seconds, then went back to fumbling the puck. "They must be going down there to get my surprise party set up. I really shouldn't go along, since it's most likely going to be a surprise and everything." he thought.

"You sure, man?" Logan asked. "We'd love to have you come along."

"No thanks, I just want to be by myself for a little bit."

"Okay, well, we'll see you soon."

Logan shut the door as he left. Carlos set the hockey puck back on his desk and dragged himself to the living area. He glanced over at he clock, which said it was after noon. "I should probably get myself something to eat." He gathered the effort to go over to the freezer, and grabbed himself a corndog. "I guess you'd wish me a happy birthday if you could, right, corndog?" Carlos asked, even though he knew he'd never get a response back. "I still have the rest of the day though for them to wish me a happy birthday, and I still have high hopes that they're planning a surprise party for me in Palm Woods Park. I mean, they're probably just not saying anything to me because they just want to hype up the special meaning…"

After heating up the corndog, Carlos plopped himself on the couch. He didn't expect his friends to be back for a good couple of hours, so he planned on watching the marathon of Spongebob that was on to cheer him up - it always cheered him up. "I have to keep it positive. It's my birthday. I can't be upset on my birthday, it's the one day out of the year that I can be truly happy…. Besides Christmas. But still. I want this to be an awesome birthday."

Carlos flipped on the television and kicked his feet onto the coffee table, being careful not to knock over the bowls of milk from Kendall and James' cereal, and Logan's half drank glass of orange juice. As the television powered on, he could hear the sounds of Spongebob filling his ears. It was the episode where Spongebob and Patrick were going around selling chocolate bars to their neighbors. His favorite episode. He managed to at least get his mind off of everyone else not remembering his birthday for a little while, with his favorite food and his favorite show. He wasn't even halfway through his corndog when he was fast asleep.


	2. Part 2

Carlos jolted awake when he heard the rest of his friends started making a racket the second they entered the room - each boy trying to talk over the next boy, and only adding onto it with the slamming of the apartment room. He glanced over at the clock on the cable box while doing a little stretch. 2:43 pm. "Well, at least that was a nice little nap… I'm starting to at least feel better about today," he thought.

"Hey dude, we really wish you would've come with us," James greeted Carlos as he watched him stretch. "You missed a great game of basketball."

"Oh. Sorry," Carlos replied. "I wasn't really feeling up to going to the park today. I thought I'd let you guys have your fun. I'm feeling better now."

"That's good to hear," Kendall smiled. "You know what? Since you're feeling better now, how about all of us go see a movie, and then dinner? It'll be our treat, and we'll let you pick the movie and the restaurant." Logan and James nodded in agreement.

"You serious?" Carlos asked in excitement. "Let me go get ready real quick!"

Carlos rushed to the bathroom as quick as he could. His hair was disheveled, drool spots running down the sides of his mouth, clothes slightly wrinkled. He fixed his hair as fast as one could, and washed the drool spots off his face. He could care less about the wrinkled clothes that he was wearing at the moment. He figured that while he was there in the bathroom, he might as well brush his teeth to get rid of that nasty nap breath that always lingers after you wake up. He reached for his toothpaste, but remembered that James had used the last of his that morning. He glanced over to the jar where each boy's toothpaste was being held, and noticed that James' was nowhere near empty. "He used the last of my toothpaste, just because he could? That jerk. Well two can play at that game - if he uses my toothpaste, I use his."

Rushing to get out of the apartment as fast as he could, Carlos finished brushing his teeth. He was determined to not let this silly little toothpaste ordeal ruin his day. He was going out to a movie and dinner with his best friends, and a little toothpaste wasn't worth getting upset over on a day like this. After all, tonight was the night he hoped his friends were going to give him the best birthday celebration to date.

Carlos ran out of the bathroom faster than he ever had - so fast he missed wiping the bit of foam on his cheek left over from when he brushed his teeth, which the rest of the boys awkwardly pointed out on their own cheeks so he got the hint. "So, did you pick out which movie you want to see?" Logan asked.

"Paranormal Activity!" Carlos replied, as he jumped up and down.

"You know, that movie's supposed to be scary, and you know how you reacted the last time you saw a scary movie…" James worried.

"But it's my - I just really want to see it. I want to see if I won't be scared this time, that's all," Carlos replied with a hint of sadness.

"Ok, well then, shall we go to the movie then?" Kendall asked, as he gestured to the door.

Each boy broke out into a sprint towards the door, trying to push one another out of the way, each one trying to be the first one out the door. After countless amounts of shoving and wrestling, they finally made it out of the Palm Woods and dashed to the movie theatre down the block.

They reached the theatre after of couple of minutes, drenched in sweat and breathing a little heavily. Seeing as how it looked like everyone decided to come to the movies on this fine day, the boys decided to skip the lines at the ticket booth and headed inside to get their tickets from the automated ticket machines inside. Once they all received their tickets, Kendall, Logan and James all yelled in unison "SNACK BAR!" while Carlos followed closely behind, not nearly as excited about food right now as they were. He stood near the theatre where Paranormal Activity was playing, watching as the boys stockpiled on popcorn, candy, and soda. As he watched his friends carry all this food towards him and the theatre, he figured that none of all this food would be for him since he didn't recall asking for them to get him anything A smile crept up on Carlos' face when Logan handed him a soda and insisted that they'd all share their snacks with him.

The theatre was packed. All four of them started looking in different directions for available seats, when Kendall spotted four seats together in the very back. They rushed to snatch these seats up, making sure no one else could possibly steal these seats. Just in case Carlos got scared during the movie, they planned out how they should sit - Carlos had requested that he sit in between James and Logan, while Logan ended up sitting on the other side of Kendall. Not long after they got situated in this seating arrangement, and each of the three boys forcefully insisting Carlos to have some of their snacks, the movie started.

At the end of the movie, the stretch of seats the boys were sitting in ended up covered in bits and pieces of popcorn and candy. Carlos had gotten scared once again, and knowing the rest of his friends, he wouldn't hear the last of it from them, and the thought of this started putting a damper on his birthday spirit. "You know, I think I may actually start to get bruises on my arm from you grabbing me so hard," James said as he rubbed his arm. Carlos apologized profusely. "So, are we going to head out to dinner now?" Logan asked the group. Carlos pondered the thought of this for a minute or two, trying to decide where he wanted to go, finally choosing on mexican food. As much as he loved corndogs, mexican food made him just as happy. "The place I want to go to is kind of expensive… You sure it's alright that we still go?" Carlos asked.

"I told you Carlos, don't worry about it!" Kendall assured. "We got it under control! Now let's move out!"

Carlos hated choosing such an expensive restaurant to eat at, so he kept asking if they wanted to go to some other place less expensive, but his friends insisted that they go anyway - they wanted to keep their promise of keeping him in a good mood that day. Each one of them kept reminding Carlos that money wasn't an issue, paying wasn't a problem for them.

It was nearing seven in the evening now as they headed over to the restaurant, and Carlos was starting to worry about his birthday again, rather than the price of all their meals put together. Thoughts started racing through his mind. "Maybe they just have something planned for when we finish dinner. The waiters and waitresses singing happy birthday? A free dessert? Even though that's slightly embarrassing and everyone in the restaurant is staring at you, having this happen isn't nearly as bad as not getting a single happy birthday wish. I should stop worrying about this. They can't forget about doing something for my birthday. They just can't."

He tried pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind. He figured that once their food was ordered when they got there and brought to them, it would make all his worries go away, and then his best friends will finally say happy birthday to them.

The four boys finally reached the mexican restaurant. For it being seven at night, they expected it to be packed with the usual dinner crowd, but it was surprisingly quiet. As they were being seated, Carlos' thoughts started racing to him again. "Maybe they called the restaurant while I was in the bathroom at the theatre and told them it was my birthday and they wanted to reserve basically the whole restaurant? I mean, it'll be less embarassing if they get the staff to sing. Okay Carlos, you really need to stop coming up with these ideas. You've already found out that the surprise party you thought was going to happen at Palm Woods Park didn't really happen."

Once they had been led to their booth and had gotten comfortable, the waitress assigned to their table came out with chips and salsa, introduced herself, took drink orders, then left so everyone could decide on what they wanted to eat. As they took their time looking over the menus, each boy silently choosing tacos before revealing what they wanted to each other, even though they knew each other's love of tacos and knowing they always ordered plenty of tacos every single time they went out to a mexican restaurant. Their waitress returned with their drinks, and began to take their orders. Carlos wanted no tomatoes on his tacos, Logan wanted no lettuce on his, while Kendall and James ordered theirs as they came. Their waitress left once again, leaving the boys to chat while their food was being made, and eat more chips and salsa. Instead of being in the conversation that was going on, Carlos was often staring off into space wondering what everyone had organized at dinner as a surprise. James always brought him back to reality by throwing little bits of chips at him, trying to get them in his slightly open mouth. By the third or fourth time that James had done this, their waitress had returned a second time with their food. Carlos had looked inside his tacos, and saw that there were tomatoes in them. He sighed, trying not to let such a simple food ruining his declining mood. He shrugged it off, joining the boys in the devouring of their tacos, trying to keep a smile on his face. As the boys were eating their meals, their waitress periodically stopped over to check on how their were doing, and once they were nearing the end of their meal, she said she'd bring out their check in a couple of minutes.

After a few minutes of waiting and staring at the leftover food he was too full to eat, Carlos glanced over as the waitress brought out the check, and politely said "thanks". He watched as Kendall grabbed it, and took his mom's credit card that was for "in case of emergencies" out of his wallet. A dinner and a movie to cheer up a best friend was an emergency, right? As he watched Kendall put the card with the check, and Logan and James cracking jokes with each other, Carlos could start to feel the tears welling up in his eyes. Dinner was over, and none of the boys had said happy birthday to him. Tears started falling down his cheek, harder and harder. He pushed himself out of the booth, wiped the tears that were falling fast now, and walked as fast as he could out of the restaurant. The rest of the boys glanced at each other, wondering what they had done, and started calling out Carlos' name. He could hear their calls as he was walking away, but ignored them. As soon as he got outside, he hailed a cab to take him back to the Palm Woods.

Carlos arrived back at the hotel. He slowly dragged himself up to the second floor, and entered 2J. His friends couldn't even remember his birthday. He didn't care about the presents as the day grew on, all he was really hoping for was a simple "happy birthday." Now that this day was almost over, all he wanted to do was sit alone, exclude himself from everyone else.

He grabbed a corndog out of the freezer and stuck it in the microwave. He watched the corndog rotate in the microwave as it cooked. Once it finished heating up, he removed the corndog from the microwave, put a candle in the top, and lit the candle. He sat down at the table, staring at the candle flickering, reflecting on everything that happened today. "Happy birthday, Carlos," he told himself in a sad tone, as a few tears fell from his eyes. "Maybe next year they'll remember."

* * *

**A/N:** This was originally going to be the ending of the story... but my lovely friends over at tumblr were upset by the ending, and requested a happier ending, so the third/final part to this does have a happier ending :3


	3. Part 3

Carlos continued to watch the candle as it melted away, until there was no more candle left to burn and the flame died out. He looked at the corndog, now covered in melted wax, deciding he didn't want it anymore. Usually, no matter how full he was, he was always up to devouring a corndog, but after his depressing meal of tacos tonight it just wasn't worth it. He walked over to the trash can, threw his corndog away, and moped towards his room.

With almost perfect timing, his friends burst through the front door. Carlos tried to make an effort to look at his friends as they rushed through, but his eyes just started to form more tears than he could imagine, and he turned his head before they could see him crying again. He could hear each boy question him about what was going on, with worry in their voices, but he just couldn't bring himself to pay attention to anything they said, and just continued to drag himself into his room.

As a moment of panic set in for the three boys left remaining in the main living area, Kendall started to worry. "Logan, go after him and talk to him! You're the smart one! You'll be able to figure out what's wrong with him!"

Logan hesitated for a second, then hurried off to go try and catch up with Carlos. By the time he reached Carlos' room, the door was shut, and he could hear slight sobbing coming from the other side of the door. "Carlos, can I come in and talk to you?" Logan asked. Logan listened carefully as he heard some sniffling, and the sound of the door lock unlocking.

By the time Logan could open up the door and enter, Carlos was sitting on his bed, fumbling with his hockey puck again, still sobbing slightly. Logan sat next to him and sighed. "What's wrong, man? Why are you so upset?"

Carlos brushed away the tears on his face before responding. "Today was my birthday."

Logan sat and stared at Carlos for what seemed like an eternity. "Why didn't you remind us that it your birthday today?" Logan said.

"I thought you guys knew!" Carlos cried out. His voice started cracking with sadness, like he was going to break down all over again at any second. "I thought you guys had remembered. This morning at breakfast, I thought you guys were just holding of on saying happy birthday. You guys going to Palm Woods Park? I purposely didn't go because I thought you guys were going to plan a surprise party in the park for me. Movie and a dinner? I started to lose hope in you guys towards the end of the night, but I thought at least at dinner you guys would have the restaurant staff sing happy birthday to me."

"I don't even know how all three of us could forget…" Logan questioned himself. "I could've sworn I wrote it down on my calendar. I always put your guys' birthdays on my calendar. Carlos, you know I truly apologize about forgetting your birthday." Carlos sniffled and wiped his nose while he stared up at Logan with his puppy dog eyes. "How about we go out to the living room and tell Kendall and James that it's your birthday? Then, we can figure out how we can make it all up to you." Carlos nodded.

Kendall and James were seated on the big couch in the living room, too worried about what was wrong with Carlos to even drink the two cans of soda they had gotten out of the fridge. Logan filed out of Carlos' room first, with Carlos following behind. Kendall and James watched as Logan and Carlos made their way over to the adjoining section of couch. "You guys," Logan started, sounding like he was going into one of his educational speeches. "Carlos… Has something he'd like to say."

Carlos wasn't all too entirely sure how he should start off. He figured that the best way was probably to just say it right out of the bat. He hesitated for a second, then sighed. "James, Kendall… Today was my birthday."

He went on to tell them exactly what he had told Logan in his bedroom. He couldn't stand to look up at their faces as he told them, but he could feel that they felt absolutely terrible. As Carlos finished, Kendall and James tried to speak, but no words would come out. "We're so sorry, man," James said, after what seemed like an eternity of silence. "We feel terrible about forgetting. What can we do for you? We still have a few hours left to celebrate your birthday."

"You know, the movie and dinner were plenty enough for me, even though it ended terribly," Carlos responded. "You guys don't have to do anything, really."

"Not even a little cake?" Kendall asked. "You can't not have cake on your birthday."

"That does sound good."

Logan started rambling off a plan. "I know that all the bakeries are all closed down by now. Even the ones in the grocery stores… If my memory serves me right though, grocery stores should still be selling blank cakes right by the bakery. We could get one of those blank cakes, and decorate it for you ourselves. Does that sound like a plan?"

"Only if you guys will be decorating it with corndogs." Carlos smiled. He was starting to feel better already.

All four boys collected themselves, and started to head out to the nearest grocery store. Carlos ended up having to listen to his friends apologize profusely to him the entire journey, no matter how many times he said that he would be alright.

Once they had arrived at the grocery store, everyone but Carlos rushed over to the bakery to get started on picking out a cake. As he took his time getting to the bakery, Carlos could hear Kendall yell "Hey Carlos! Do you want a chocolate or vanilla cake?", to which he yelled back "Vanilla!" He neared the bakery, but once he got close enough, he could hear the scuffling of his friend's shoes on the tiled floor as they grabbed a cake, and ran off to go find the icing. Carlos figured that it would probably be a better idea to just wait around the registers, so his friends could discuss what they wanted to put on his cake as they picked out the icing.

Carlos waited patiently at the front of the store, expecting the trio to come rushing to the registers at any moment. Not more than five minutes after he found a place to sit, he could hear his friends scurrying up to go check out. He watched as they paid for all the fixing for the cake, and as they came around to where he was seated, they grabbed him by the wrist and rushed out of the store like no one's business.

Carlos was banished to the living room couch the second they entered 2J, while his friends got to decorating in the kitchen. He wasn't sure what to expect when the other three brought the cake out to him - none of them had extraordinary artistic ability, everything they did turned out to look like something a five year old drew. He tried waiting patiently on the couch, but he started to become restless. He tried catching peeks of it whenever one of the boys would move around, but James would always catch him in the act and attempted to fling a bit of icing at him.

After a good amount of time later, and some slight arguing about what they were going to do as they brought the cake out, Logan, Kendall and James finally brought out the finished cake out to Carlos. As they leaned the cake so he could see all of the designs on it, Carlos' smile widened so much he couldn't feel his cheeks anymore. After setting the cake on the table, James lit up the candles on the cake while Kendall started off in a round of singing happy birthday. Carlos felt the tears coming back in his eyes once again, but this time because he was happy. Even though it was nearing the end of the night now and it had taken up until now for them to really celebrate it, Carlos' mood had turned around 180 degrees.

"Guys, I'm sorry for not reminding you that it was my birthday today. I'm just happy now that you guys still wanted to do something for me. Just being with you guys right now is enough to make it fantastic." Carlos confessed, as Logan cut and handed him an end corner piece of cake embellished with an icing corndog.


End file.
